The first round of the NIAA Aerobatics took place on Sunday 26th April at the wonderful Ballymoney Model Flying Club. The morning started early for my dad and I, we set of at 7.30am along with David Nolan, as we drove up the M2 it started to brighten up and looked better further north. We picked up a lost Dutch man on the way so had ourselves a convey, breaker breaker rubber duck and all that, arriving on site at 9am. A good few people were there already and the marquee was up and our lunch was being prepared.

(Me, Lost? Naa. I knew where I was, just trying to convince the woman in the gps box that I wanted to go to the middle of a field, and that moaning about ‘there is no road in that area’ was not what I wanted to hear.) I would have won the battle, honestly.. But following the Poots-van was easier 😉

IF A PERSON CALLED SIMON ASHTON (SIMON25@HOTMAIL.CO.UK ) CONTACTS YOU THROUGH EMAIL DON’T OPEN THE MESSAGE. DELETE IT BECAUSE HE IS A HACKER!!

followed by a lot of other nonsense.

Folks, it’s a hoax, it’s been around for ages, and every so often someone falls for it and starts sending this to all his friends, thereby creating a problem far worse then the original. Usualy these messages are forwarded in such a way that the recipient will have acces to a couple of 100 KNOWN VALID email addresses.

THANKY YOU!!! If I were a hacker I could not be more pleased.

By copying/pasting/forwarding this list you give someone else (‘The Hacker’) access to a couple of 100 KNOWN good email addresses, and you’ve just created a problem 10 times worse then the original.

If you want to forward stuff like this to a list of people, ALWAYS use the BCC field, since that way, nobody will see the addressees.

Just spotted the following article at the neighbours website. Truth be told, it’s really important to keep an eye on these NiMH cells. They are not reliable when it comes to ‘fly and forget’. You can’t forget about them.

We need a battery that can be left for months, and when summer unexpectedly happens, can deliver the goods. It appears that NiMH’s are not fly and forget.

It might be a specific make that has problems. (In this case it was the same make that I’ve had problems with myself, either by them spontaniously producing puff’s of smoke or failing miserably in their rated capacity.

Either way, testing is your only answer to knowing what goes on.

I’m sure there are a zillion happy users out there, all saying they never had a problem. I’ll happily believe all of you, but I want to KNOW that my battery works.

It is my understanding that there are likely not enough people around this weekend to hold a gliding competition. Given that this weekend also coincides with the now famous Letterkenny Grant Capell Memorial Fly-in, it seems sensible to postpone it to a date when we have practised hill climbing a bit more.

Kees
(wearing Contest Directors hat)

Update: As it turned out, there was’nt a puff of wind on the hill, so we saved ourself the effort of climbing up to find out.

Just never, ever leave a lipo alone when charging. And make sure you have a way to get them out if things go wrong! And you do have a fire extinguisher in the shed? Does not stop the fire, but might save the rest..

‘t Was a typical N-Ireland spring day: a bit windy, a bit chilly, but for a change it was dry! So the usual suspects climbed the hill to Compete. Veterans of this event know to bring a Phase 6, newby’s bring a DL50. Real pilots bring a Scale glider..Continue reading »

I was trying to get something flyable ready for this weekend’s Mount Spelga event. I also had been toying with the idea to start using the great outdoors in the backyard for some time. And I frequently find myself in far away places with some spare time, or driving home, wishing I could stop and fly on that nice field. Continue reading »